South Africa: Government Is Committed to Strengthening the Manufacturing Sector - Minister Davies

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says developmental approach trade policy will go a long way in strengthening and rescuing the productive sectors. He was speaking at the second national Proudly South African Buy Local Summit that took place at the Emperors Palace today Monday, 26 November 2012.

Minister Davies told the summit that trade policy should not be considered as a stand alone, but trade policy decisions should rather be shaped and informed by industrial policy objectives. He further articulated that industrial policy should have priority over trade policy.

"When decisions are taken, when considerations are given by bodies like the International Trade Administration Commission, when it considers the evidence it needs to think very hard and carefully what does a decision about tariffs mean in terms of job creation and in terms of manufacturing production."

The Minister highlighted that government's efforts of boosting the manufacturing sector has yielded several achievements such as in the Automotive sector.

"Our support for the Automotive sectors has, notwithstanding considerable constraints led to R15 billion investment commitments in the sector; the export of vehicles from SA will soon hit the 360 000 mark and the export of components is set to hit the R40 billion mark by 2013", he said.

Davies further indicated that the department of Trade and Industry has deployed close to R1 billion of incentives over the past year to raise competitiveness and to curb job losses in the Clothing, Textiles, Leather and Footwear Sector. This cash injection has been instrumental in stabilising the sector; slowing down job losses and in some instances we saw the footwear sector creating jobs.

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